Two guards held Illya's arms. The third stood in front of him with a hypodermic needle filled with a pale blue fluid. The third guard bared Illya's arm and injected the fluid. Valera smiled.
"A small precaution," Valera said,
Illya tried to answer, but nothing happened. He tried again. He could not speak.
"You have seen the effects of metabala-G, I believe?" Valera said. "That is one of the wonders of science. Dr. Guerre made the drug to counteract the effects of excessive speed on a human. It proved to have an interesting side- effect that may be of even greater use, eh? Now, even if you escape or your friend finds you, you will be able to tell him nothing!"
And Valera laughed aloud, as if mocking Illya with the sound of his voice. Then he went to the telephone and ordered Solo located and captured if possible, killed if necessary.
"Come," the gaunt general said. "We have wasted enough time. Your friend will be found, and if he isn't he will not escape the city anyway. You wanted to find Project Condor, and now you will!"
Valera led the way from his office down a secret stairway where no one could see him, or his men, or his prisoner. In the street he strode straight to his grey Bentley. Moments later the car drove away.
Some five minutes after that the stolen military car, with Solo at the wheel, drove after the Bentley. Solo wore a pair of strange goggles. On the road he saw, through the goggles, the trail of small red dots that dropped from the vial he had planted. The vial would drip for twenty-four hours, could not be erased in any way, and could be seen only through the special goggles.
Sixteen hours later, just as dawn was breaking over the coast and the thick jungle-like swamps, Solo followed the tell-tale trail of the Bentley to the edge of a narrow stretch of open water. He saw where a ferry-boat had picked up the car and carried it across into what looked a like an island in the coastal swamps.
He left his car, took his briefcase and weapons, and eased into the water. He swam softly in the still dark morning. He crawled cautiously out on the other side. The trail of his vial led off along a narrow dirt road. He followed it silently.
The sun was up when he reached the end of the trail. The grey Bentley stood in front of a strange-looking windowless concrete building.
Solo could guess what the building was—an immense atomic reactor pile.
But it was another odd-shaped building that caught his eye. He crept through the jungle-like growth to this building.
Its size was staggering to the mind, at least as wide as a regulation football field.
It was shaped like the dome of an observatory, like a giant beehive. Above it was heavy camouflage. Solo studied it and saw a ring of windows at ground level. Up close it was so large it faded away out of sight on either side as it curved in its circle. He reached a window and looked in. What he saw was more staggering than the size of the giant building.
He saw a tall metal column. It towered high into the dome, and seemed to stand in a deep hole in the ground.
The column itself was at least a hundred feet wide and over a hundred feet high.
Attached to the column half way up he saw the six black nuclear aircraft with their stubby wings.
For a long minute he could not believe what he was seeing. Men climbed ladders and went in and out of the giant column. He looked at where it entered the earth and faded away below.
He knew what he was seeing, but he did not want to believe it, in all its horror.
The column was the payload end of the largest rocket he had ever seen.
A rocket that could only lift off under more concentrated power than he had ever heard could be developed.
And the payload end was only one possible thing—a space station intended to orbit. A space station that carried six deadly nuclear aircraft.
A space station that could dominate the Earth.
Project Condor!
ACT IV
FOR WANT OF A NAIL
THE FOUR SOLDIERS of the 16th Regiment rode in the jeep through the swamp, driving carefully on the dirt road. A scouting party, they watched the jungle and narrow waterways carefully. It was the corporal himself who saw the man come out of the brush.
"Look there!" the corporal cried in Spanish.
The man who came out of the bush was covered in mud from head to foot, his clothes dripping. He waved frantically at the soldiers of the 16th Regiment. The soldiers slowed and kept their weapons pointed at him.
"You will remain completely motionless, Senor," the corporal said in Spanish. And to his men, "Search him."
"Listen, my name is Napoleon Solo. I have to see your commander immediately!" Solo said.
After his one long look at the gigantic rocket with its deadly space station, Solo had managed to retrace his steps and swim back to the mainland. But his stolen car had been gone, and he had seen the tracks of many men wearing boots. He was sure that no Thrush men had left the swamp island, and realized that the Government had undoubtedly sent men, probably under the command of General Valera. Only Valera was on the island, not with the soldiers.
He had begun to look for the soldiers.
He searched as quickly as he could in the trackless jungle swamps—there was no telling just when the space station would be launched. Valera had come here, so it was probably soon. Now, with the soldiers watching him suspiciously, he tried to convince them of the urgency.
"It's vitally important," Solo said in Spanish.
The corporal eyed him suspiciously. "You are not of our country, Senor?"
"No, I'm an American: I'm working with General Hoyos!" Solo said.
"North Americano?" the corporal said, in English now.
One of the soldiers who had searched Solo showed the U.N.C.L.E. special and the briefcase filled with strange-looking objects and weapons to the corporal. The corporal looked at Solo's equipment.
"So? A Yankee who carries a pistol and is found walking alone in a swamp? I think the commander, he will also want to see you, Senor."
Ten minutes later Solo stood before a short, dark man in the uniform of a full colonel. The colonel, one Colonel Montoya, Commander of the 16th Regiment, had examined his briefcase and pistol.
"You say this is an U.N.C.L.E. weapon, that the case is the same, and that you are named Napoleon Solo, an agent for that organization?"
"Yes, Colonel, and can we hurry? They have a space station they are going to launch!" Solo explained.
"A space station? From the island in the swamp?" Montoya said. "It is quite a story, Mr. Solo, if that is indeed your true name."
"You have my credentials!" Solo snapped. "Colonel, I have friends, prisoners on that island. I have to get in there and help them! I came out to give General Hoyos a chance to get here and stop the launch."
Colonel Montoya sat down on his camp stool inside the field tent. "Mr. Solo, again if that is truly your name," Montoya said. "Do you take me for a fool? You think I do not know that my men are here for some important project? Only you continue to talk about General Hoyos, when it is General Valera who commands this mission. If you were what you say you are, would you not know that? Would you not ask for General Valera?"
Solo studied the short, dark colonel. The soldier had the ring of truth in his voice, and yet? Thrush men were well trained. If Valera was a Thrush man, then why not Montoya? Only Solo had a hunch. In a country like this, men protected themselves. With Valera in command, General Hoyos would probably have assigned a second in command loyal to himself, Hoyos. Anyway, he had to take the chance.